Why does GTA 4 get so much hate?

[Kantor]

You're four years late to the party, radish

In large part, the "hate" for GTA4 stems from its overly positive ratings. That game did not deserve perfect scores across the board and 98% on Metacritic.

So, it's a great game, just a highly overrated game. It was early in the generation, and people expected more from the first entry in the GTA franchise for four years and the first on a new generation of consoles than more of the same with a larger city and pretty graphics.